U.s. Army Learns Some Tough Lessons

WASHINGTON — The world's most expensive and best-equipped Army performed so poorly during Operation Allied Force that the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee struggled for the right word.

"Snafu - that's it," said Sen. John Warner, R- Va., repeating the World War II acronym for "Situation Normal, All Fouled Up."

"Snafu," Warner said again, pointing his finger at the assembled top brass during a hearing last month on the state of the Army.

In military terms, the 78-day campaign against Serb President Slobodan Milosevic was recorded as a lopsided triumph for the U.S. Air Force, the American Navy and NATO allies. But for the U.S. Army, which spends $67 billion a year on 488,000 active-duty soldiers, 231,000 in the National Guard and Reserves, and a civilian work force of 287,000, the Kosovo conflict was something of an embarrassment.

Army ground forces proved too muscle-bound to respond, even in the peripheral role they played, in the fast-paced NATO punitive expedition. Still, they managed to produce the only American casualties of the conflict during ill-fated helicopter maneuvers outside Kosovo.

The chagrin has triggered another drive to reorganize and reinvent the Army in ways that have already made it an issue in the looming presidential campaign.

"We will develop the capability to put a combat force anywhere in the world in 96 hours," Gen. Erik Shinseki, the new Army chief of staff, promised the Senate panel. But the best measure of Shinseki's pledge requires a closer look at the Army's performance in Kosovo, the consequences of deploying the Army on peacekeeping missions and its bungling that has contributed to waning enlistments and plunging morale of its troops.

To keep the Green Machine from being frozen out of what essentially was an air campaign, NATO commander Army Gen. Wesley Clark ordered to the region two dozen of the Army's most awesome weapon, the Apache assault helicopter. The plan called for skilled Apache pilots wearing night-vision goggles to foray from a base in Albania and pick off Serb targets at a distance of five miles with laser- guided Hellfire missiles.

The order brought delays. First, bad weather slowed the arrival of the helicopters flying from Apache bases in Germany. Then weeks passed as a swampy area near a crowded Tirana, Albania, airport, was drained to provide a local base. There were more delays as thousands of Army soldiers were deployed to defend the Apache base.

Finally, a month after the attacks on Kosovo began, the Apaches began risky night rehearsals. Within a week, two of the choppers crashed, killing two pilots.

The crashes were quickly blamed on a lack of proper Army training: There had been a cutback in funds for routine flying that keeps pilots sharp. Lack of flying proficiency is the most common cause of such crashes.

"We are placing them and their unit at risk when we have to ramp up for a real-world crisis," complained Army Brig. Gen. Richard Cody in a report about the Apache debacle. In a memo to the top brass setting priorities, Cody complained: "You just keep streamlining, and you're cutting into the bone instead of the fat."

Cody's memo was addressed to Shinseki as he prepared to take over as the new Army chief. At his Senate confirmation hearing in June, Shinseki did not mention the Apache debacle in his opening statement, but he seemed to have it in mind with his promise to reorder priorities.

"Soldiers are the heart and soul of the Army," Shinseki said. "The first mission in taking care of soldiers is making sure they are trained and ready."

But events since his remarks raise questions about the Army's dedication to soldier welfare, training and readiness. More than half the Apache fleet of 754 helicopters is now grounded because of a mechanical problem in the tail rotor. Repairs will take 10 months and force a halt in pilot training.

In Congress, where the Army is competing with other services for budget-surplus funds, Shinseki's organization has been developing a reputation as the "can't do" force. In part, this is because the Army's problems in Kosovo didn't stop with the Apache debacle.

When it appeared Milosevic might defy NATO air strikes indefinitely with continued terror tactics in Kosovo, President Clinton's top advisers looked at Plan B. Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would take four to six months to field an armored force with its support units, senior White House officials said.

Shelton's scenario underscored the Army's lack of agility. While an Army tank brigade was already poised in Bosnia where it had been on a peacekeeping mission since 1996, deploying a second armored brigade in Macedonia seemed impossible.